The Art of Dawn
by LunaBluejay
Summary: A new pony comes to Ponyville! She just earned her cutie mark, but doubts that her special talent is what she's destined to do. Will Pinkie Pie and the CMC help her see how special her talent really is?
1. Chapter 1

It was early Monday morning and the Cutie Mark Crusaders Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle were hanging out on the playground before school started. "Ok, so maybe stone skipping isn't our special talent. Next weekend we'll think of something for sure!" said Scootaloo. "I say next time we try to help my big brother Macintosh with taking care of the apple orchirds...who knows? Maybe we're gardeners!" exclaimed Apple Bloom. "That sounds like a good idea." added Sweetie Belle. Just then, the bell rang and all the little fillies headed into the classroom.

Everyone sat down at their desks. Cheerilee happily trotted in and stood at the front of the class. "Good morning class!" she chimed. "To start the morning off I would like to introduce our newest student!" she looked towards the door and motioned to the pony waiting outside to come in. A small unicorn slowly came into the classroom. She had long, brown mane tied up in a pony tail with a yellow bow. Around her neck was a matching bandana. She slunked by Mrs. Cheerilee and looked at the floor. "She must be real shy." whispered Apple Bloom to Sweetie Belle. Mrs. Cheerilee cleared her throat and started again: "This is Dawn Globetrotter, who just moved in from Canterlot. Everyone be sure to give her a good welcome. You can take a seat in the back behind Diamond Tiara." turned to the board and started writing down the day's schedule. Dawn Globetrotter walked towards the empty desk, still looking towards the ground. "Hey, watch this!" whispered Diamond Tiara to Silver Spoon. She then stuck out her leg, to which Dawn hastily tripped over and fell to the floor. "What is going on?" Mrs. Cheerilee asked sharply. "Oh nothing, ! Dawn just tripped over, that's all." said DT with a smile. Dawn silently got up, and jumped into her seat. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon quietly giggled at their little prank.

"Did you see that?" said Sweetie Belle to her fellow crusaders. "Yeah! Diamond Tiara totally tripped the new girl and got away with it!" replied Scootaloo. Apple Bloom just looked at the new unicorn sitting across the room. She wondered why she hadn't said anything. Something seemed to be been bothering her.


	2. Chapter 2

At recess, Apple Bloom went to find the new pony. She found her sitting under a tree all by herself. The girl was too busy looking at the ground to notice Apple Bloom happily trotting over. "Hi-ya! My name is Apple Bloom. I'm sorry, but I forgot your name...could you tell me what it was again?" she asked. The girl looked up and turned to Apple Bloom. She smiled a little and said "Oh, my name's Dawn Globetrotter. That's ok... everyone always forgets my name." she leaned back against the tree and sighed. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo came up beside Apple Bloom. "Hi, I'm Sweetie Belle, and this is Scootaloo." Dawn nodded and smiled. "Yeah, we're the Cutie Mark Crusaders! We're working to earn our cutie marks!" exclaimed Scootaloo. Dawn looked surprised upon hearing this. "The...Cutie Mark Crusaders?" she asked. "Yeah!" said Apple Bloom. Just then, Apple Bloom noticed that Dawn already had her cutie mark. It was a big brush with pink paint on it. "Hey! You got your cutie mark!" she said. Dawn looked at her cutie mark and started to tear up. She hastily got up and galloped all the way to the other side of the playground, where all the kids were lining up. "What just happened?" asked Sweetie Belle.

Throughout the rest of class, Apple Bloom couldn't stop thinking about why Dawn was so upset. It didn't help that Diamond Tiara was being mean to Dawn, but something about her cutie mark was upsetting her too. And how can anyone get upset over a cutie mark? It was something that Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo would do anything to get. Was it that Dawn...didn't like her cutie mark?

A few hours passed and the class was dismissed. Apple Bloom made sure she was the first one out the door so she could catch Dawn before she left. Luckily, Dawn was the last one to leave the building. "Hey, Dawn? I'm really sorry about what I said earlier. I didn't mean to make you upset." said Apple Bloom. "Maybe...we could hang out?" Dawn thought about it. "Maybe you can swing by my house later. Mom said she needed me home to unpack some things first, but you can come before dinner." replied Dawn. Apple Bloom gave a big smile. With that, Apple Bloom and Dawn went their separate ways.

Apple Bloom was happy that she was finally getting close to making Dawn feel better. Maybe she would ask about Dawn's cutie mark when Dawn felt a bit more comfortable. Apple Bloom couldn't wait to share her day with big sister Applejack!

Dawn slowly made her way through town. What an awful day she had. Another bully, and she also had her new cutie mark...it made her feel bad just thinking about it.

As she reached her home, her mother came out, eager to talk about her daughter's first day at school. "Tell me all about it, your classmates, the teacher, I want to hear everything!" said Mrs. Globetrotter to her daughter. "Mom, could I tell you later? I need to unpack first." said Dawn. "Oh! I almost forgot... a classmate is gonna come over later to hang out." Dawn added. Mrs. Globetrotter smiled brightly "Oh, my little sunrise! You're already making friends! Come inside so we can tell your father!" Dawn was then dragged inside by her hectic mother.

_"I'm not really sure if Apple Bloom wants to be my friend... I've never had a friend before."_


	3. Chapter 3

The CMC stood at the Dawn's house, which was down the street from Sugar Cube Corner. Though the house itself was very simple, the yard was filled with flowers of every shape and size. Apple Bloom recognized a few of them from being around Zecora's place. She assumed that the Globetrotters must have moved from someplace far away.

Sweetie Belle knocked on the door too which Mrs. Globetrotter excitedly opened the door. "Hello, Hello, Hello! You must be Dawn's new friends! Aren't you the cutest fillies I've ever seen! Please, come in."

As Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo walked in, they were met with the oddest sights any of them had ever seen. The floral wallpaper was covered from top to bottom with what Mrs. Globetrotter referred to as their "Adventure Treasure". She showed them stone tablets with ancient writings from the Great Ponymids, rare butterflies caught from an island off the coast of Saddle Arabia, and paintings from a recent trip to Germaney.

"That is so cool! This is like the stuff in the Daring Doo series!" exclaimed Scootaloo (who just recently started reading them after learning her favorite hero enjoyed them).

"Well of course, these are what I based the artifacts in the book after." Mrs. Globetrotter said.

"Wait...you mean YOU wrote all the Daring Doo's?"

"All under a pseudonym, of course. That means I wrote them under a fake name."

"Why would you do that?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"The press would always follow me around if they knew it was me who wrote them. I don't want Dawn and us to live a life with no privacy." she replied. "However, its no secret. You can tell your friends, if they'll even believe you."

"I can't wait for Rainbow Dash to hear about this! She loves your books!" said Scootaloo. Mrs. Globetrotter was very happy to hear them so excited about her work. She said as soon as she got the first chapter in her new book, she'd let them read it.

Dawn was upstairs, listening to their conversation. What were they going to think of her now? Would they think that her mom was way cooler and didn't want to talk to her? Did they think her family was too strange? She gulped and made her way downstairs where she was immediately hug-attacked by her mom.

"Oh my little sunrise! You have such a nice group of friends!" she let go of Dawn, who was now gasping for air. "Go take your friends to your room and i'll go make some snacks." she trotted off towards the kitchen. Dawn turned to the CMC and apologized for the house and her mom.

"What'cha sayin' sorry for? Your house is really neat and your ma ain't so bad." said Apple Bloom. The other fillies nodded their heads in agreement.

"Come on, I really want to see your room!" said Sweetie Belle.

Dawn seemed to brighten up at this. Maybe they really wanted to be friends with her after all. "Ok!"

They all made their way to Dawn's bedroom, which was fairly nice to say the least. It was nicely-sized and contained a bed, dresser, closet, some unpacked boxes, and a shelf covered in photos. The pictures contained Dawn's family featured in different places, many of them were unknown to Apple Bloom. One of the pictures featured somepony very familiar though...

"Hey, is this you with Zecora?" she asked Dawn.

She nodded. "She was a good friend from one of our travels. When we learned she lived here, we decided to move here too since we couldn't think of a new place to go to."

Sweetie Belle glanced at the shelf. "Your family sure have been moving a lot."

"It's in the family name. The Globetrotters have been exploring the world for generations. We've been map makers, sailors, pilots, explorers, you name it! My dad met my mom while exploring."

"Aww how sweet!"

While Dawn, Sweetie, and Apple Bloom were conversing on travel, Scootaloo was investigating the piece of paper that was protruding out of the dresser compartment.

"Hey Dawn, what happened to this picture?"

Dawn's smile quickly turned into a frown when she saw the picture in Scootaloo's hand. The paper was covered in large spots of red and purple paint.

"Don't touch that!" she grabbed it and slipped it back into the drawer.

The three looked curiously at their fanatic friend.

"Uh...Dawn? Is there something ya' might wanna talk about?" asked Apple Bloom.

Dawn sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just that...well...it's kind of a long story..."

Sweetie Belle put her arm around her and they sat on her bed. "Just start from the beginning."

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo jumped down beside her. "As long as there's no singing." mumbled Scootaloo.


	4. Chapter 4

_Just a couple of weeks ago, in Mareitoba (Outside the Equestrian Border)..._

Dawn was nervous. The most kind of nervous, like she's in a haunted house and was afraid a ghost was going to pop out at her. She was going to have to turn in the portrait of Princess Celestia she painted. Was there something she could add to make it look nicer? What if Mrs. Sunnytail wouldn't like it?

"Hey Dawn" said Fauna, who ushered her towards her giggling group. "Can you come here for a moment?"

Dawn didn't like the loud, rude posse, but she did so anyway. "Yes, is there something you need?"

"I was just wondering which shade of red I should use." Fauna said as she held up two red crayons.

"They look exactly the same to me."

"Well look harder."

Dawn leaned in close and while she was distracted one of the other girls grabbed her portrait. "Hey give it back! Please!"

"Hehe, you call this a picture?" said one. "Looks like a bunch of lines to me."

"Did you make it with hoof-painting, or your lunch?" jeered another.

"Stop it!"

"Oh, we'll just have to fix it _for_ you, then." said Fauna as she started squeezing tubes of paint on it.

All the other girls circled around her, adding their own contribution and blocking it from Dawn's view.

"There!" Fauna said as she dropped it to the floor. The posse walked away leaving teary Dawn to pick up her portait. It was almost un-recognizable now.

"But...but...this was my first real picture. I worked so hard on it..."

* * *

At the end of the day, the students gave their pictures to as they walked out the door. Dawn took her time and made sure she was last out the door. _"I tried everything!" she thought. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for art."_

She gave the picture to her teacher and walked out the door.

"Dawn?" the teacher stopped her. "You forgot to put your name on it. An artist must sign her work."

"I'm not an artist" she mumbled as she wrote her name and headed out the school's front gate. Rain puddles scattered the schoolground and the sky was as gray as Dawn's heart.

"See ya tomorrow!" snorted Fauna as she splayed Dawn with a puddle.

Dawn angrily glared at her as she trotted away merrily. Then she looked down at the puddle and her eyes widened. It was...it was...

"MY CUTIE MARK!" she gasped. She knew she would get it soon! There was only one problem...

It was a paintbrush.

Her "special talent" was painting.

But she wasn't a good painter.

_I mean, how could I be a painter? Fauna and the other girls said my art was terrible... Aren't cutie marks supposed to be things you're good at?_

Her mother was more joyous over her cutie mark than Dawn was. However, when Dawn told her mother what happened at school, her mother marched back and took Dawn out of Maritoba Elementary. On their way out, Mrs. Sunnytail apologized and gave them back her drawing, even though she didn't want it; her mother insisted it was good and told her to keep it.

* * *

Mrs. Globetrotter was always concerned with her self-conscious and low-self esteemed daughter, and having to move all the time was what she feared was becoming negative on Dawn's social life.

"I'm concerned about our little Sunrise, Ace." she had told her husband that afternoon.

"Are there fillies bullying her again, Ramona?" Mr. Globetrotter inquired.

"*Sigh*...I'm afraid so. Maybe its our constant moving around? We never stay around long enough for her to form solid friendships...and if she does, then she has to leave them! I know the "traditions" of the Globetrotters, but in this day and age, sometimes you have to give up our ways." she said, sitting down beside him.

"You mean, no more adventuring?"

"Its for the best of the family. We'd be able to spend more time together, and Dawn could settle down and will be able to feel more comfortable! Remember when we went to Ethiponia? She didn't want to talk to anyone because she barely knew the language! By the time she knew it, we had to leave again!"

"Ok, you're right." he said before digging through the mail. "Speaking of Ethiponia, Zecora sent us a letter from...you won't be able to guess... Ponyville!"

"Why is she in Equestria?" asked an astonished Ramona

"Take a look at this!" said Ace as he handed her the letter. "Apparently us talking about travel had convinced her to move there. So why don't we? Dawn enjoyed being with Zecora, and she won't have to learn any new culture!"

Ramona pondered this for a bit. Ponyville? Equestria? The more she thought about it, the better it sounded. So the Globetrotter family packed up immediately and went to settle in Ponyville. Mrs. Globetrotter tried to make her daughter excited, but Dawn knew the routine: move, get used to the culture, try and make friends, make enemies instead, and wait until they had to move again.

However, things were different for Dawn this time. Yeah, she still had her enemies, but I guess its kind of a natural thing. What surprised Dawn the most was that she had made friends. Three of them! On the way back from school the day that Apple Bloom said she wanted to come over, Dawn couldn't help but play around with the word under her breath. "Friend" she whispered "I'm making friends"


End file.
